Each street, each site, each moment, each encounter perpetuates new forms of exchange; new paths; routes and ways of surviving and existing in each city. We can watch, observe, experience, notate describe all we see; the pavements, the spaces between buildings, the shopping malls, the buses, the trams, the electric buses, the underground; the cars; the spaces outside of apartments; the tram stops; the empty plazas; the public statues; the bike lanes; the back streets, the bus stops, the markets; the kiosks; the street stalls. The physical infrastructure of the city, a city, this can be any city any place. The materials, which allow the city to take a form and create an image, and a specific architecture which then allows it to become individual. Then there are the people; who, in their actions, patterns, routines, exchanges; jobs, recreations; social life and temperament; collaborate and explore; create; recreate; expand; destroy, fit in to; force change upon, struggle in; ease through this physical infrastructure to allow it to become human. How can a city be revealed through movement and how far can choreography determine this movement. From the mass; heaving through the crowded under passages at 9 am; the dance of the workers; to the quiet duet of the man and the sidewalk at 3am. The city can be seen as choreography; yet perhaps this is too vague; a personal methodology. Each walk taken becomes a solo performance; noting the textures; the sounds and the spaces; How can mapping of a city reveal patterns of spatial use and explore modes of spatial encounter? We will start with our eyes closed. We will listen. Guided by a partner; a route they see; navigate and construct. A gentle duet. Becoming sensitive. Finding in our steps some new understanding of the city. Each step some new landscape. What happens when we photograph with our eyes closed? What are we drawn to by sound and sensation? The passing wind, the empty space; changes in velocity; all becoming our experience of place.
The Duet of the Body and the City. Berlin. Memory, Counter Cartography and Choreography. A series of workshops by Beatrice Jarvis July 7th to August 5th. 2012
ENTER THE CITY: ENTER A STREET: ENTER A W ORLD: ENTER A STORY: How can the body become a reflective mechanism for the experience of the body in the city? How far can the city be shaped and moulded by the actions and reactions of the body? This workshop explores how photography and choreography can be used as tools to map and interact with the activity of the city. Working from a series of choreographic scores; we will explore a collection of sites and areas in Berlin; form central to fringe landscapes and form a short series of interventions and spatial reflections forming series of choreographic works collaboratively and individually. This workshop process aims to bring together photographers, dancers. sociologists, choreographers, architects, town planners, artist, film makers and all those with a keen interest for urban space investigation for a reflective, active and constructive series of actions and dialogs. Collaboration, discourse and intellectual inquiry are seminal to this concept. Urban space will effectively become a live laboratory in this workshop to play, discover and create.
To look at human movements as action signs is to conceive the human body itself as signifier, to conceive of the body as a signifying body. What this means is that we have to conceive of human act/actions as embodied intentions and that we have to be able to see a lived space as intentionally achieved structuring, some that has been willed or is now willed by someone or some group of persons.’ 1 STRUCTURE: STAGE ONE: LOCATION: STUDIO/ WORKPLACE/ QUIET AREA OF THE CITY Each participant will be supplied with a workshop pack, a disposable cam era and a series of three m ovem ent scores and a m ap. The City as Studio: Introduction to workshop with Beatrice Jarvis exploring the role of urban intervention, site specific performance and street photography as means to investigate; explore and interact with the city. Reflecting on recent projects in Deptford High Street, Brick Lane and Elephant and Castle Heygate Estate (LONDON) and similar sites in Bucharest; we shall use the projects introduced as a means to explore the following questions in both arts practice and research: -
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How far can creative urban investigative practice function as social vehicle, which can allow us to explore public urban space socially, spatially and culturally? Can the creative arts change the policy framework for urban progress? Can a social value be attributed to an image of the everyday? How can the movement of a city be mapped? How can the creation of counter cartographies enable a heightened understanding of local social infrastructures? Can art works highlight social life? Can movement portray a city? How do creative practices generate examples of qualitative sociological data? Can the body be used as a method of highlighting key concerns of locality? Can the body become a vehicle of social expression when frame through urban street photography?
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Farnell. B ( 2001) Human Action Sign in Cultural Context. The Visible and Invisible in Movement and Dance. The Scarecrow Press. Maryland. P53
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Can far the city ever be fully grasped and read like a text, danced as choreography? What are the limits of creative and non-creative urban investigation? How far do can creative research generate action for actual demand for spatial change? How far can creative activities facilitate a voice for the politically ‘unheard’? How far can any form of spatial regeneration satisfy local conflicts? Can the idea of ‘social legacy’ be applied to site specific performance intervention and time based installation in socially deprived areas and can such impact be realistically or ephemerally measured? Can creative practice inform a ‘tool kit’ for regeneration and policy? Can performance be a form of social research in itself?
Through a series of group exercises these questions will stimulate dialog and discourse, which will curate the experience of the process for each participant.
STAGE TW O: The body and the city: Beginning to Em body. Moving from theoretical to practical we will then begin to place the self, our own experiences and our own bodies into the dialogs. Exploring a series of somatic based warm up exercises to develop the position of the body as an active archive container for the experience of the city we will work in small groups with some simple physical and narrative based exercises. This process gradually allows the participant to explore ideas of embodiment and lived experience of the urban terrain as stimulus. The workshop will move at a gentle and adaptive pace allowing participants to explore through movement their own perspectives of Berlin, (journeys around the city, the familiar, the unfamiliar, places liked and disliked) incorporating their current movement vocabulary (this may be simply pedestrian, or can be more dance based, depending on the background of the participant) and using the workshop as a springboard to develop new approaches to the creation of movement vocabulary; The environment aims to encourage use of photography, creative writing and discussion to enable participants to develop their own creative map of the area which we are working in; based on reflections, encounters and memories brought to life through a safe, nurturing and creative environment. The process will explore the role of improvisation as a tool of heightened urban spatial awareness; allowing through each exercise an improvisation to form which enables exchange of urban social form; as Albright suggests: The
improvised is that which alludes history’ 2 The task of the participant throughout the improvisation process can be heightened by the ability to alternate between known movement patterns and to allow the nature of the task to bring the city to life: ‘The improvising dancer tacks back and forth between the known and the unknown, between the familiar/reliable and the unanticipated and the unpredictable.’ 3
STAGE THREE: ENTER THE CITY; The Duet of the Body and The City. Working in small groups (no bigger than 6) we will begin a series of walks. Each group will create a series of paths or instances they wish to encounter, some may know the area well; some not at all; for some this may be the first visit. Each participant will contribute a design or idea for the process, which will be made into a route for the afternoon. Sharing the city and being alone form two simultaneously important functions in this process. We will begin taking each other on series of sensory experiences of the area; these will be lead by three scores which each participant will be supplied with at the start of the process. Gradually meeting and separating.
How do we decide where to go? Why are we going? How do we ensure we are still fully focused in the workshop environment? How do we collect our walk? How can we collect movement? How do we use a camera and our body to collect experience of the city? The process is sim ple: each person presents a location within the proxim ity suggested on the m ap (we will work with a series of large scale m aps of the area) w e w ill plot all the locations together collectively and take from this exercise a route which we will follow for the duration of our walk. At 6 points on the route we will stop to explore each one of the three perform ance scores. The w alk is an active process: take the time to settle into the walk; breathe; make room for the sensation of walking, let your own thoughts quieten and let the mind become clear. The aim is to a ‘bowl of water’ allow the city to becom e reflected in you, be a window to all that you see, without judgm ent and without form ing sense as to what it all needs to m ean to you.
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Albright. A. C. Gere. D (eds) Taken by Surprise. A Dance Improvisation Reader. Wesleyan University Press. P4 Albright. A. C. Gere. D (eds) Taken by Surprise. A Dance Improvisation Reader. Wesleyan University Press. P3
AT SOME POINT ON THE JOURNEY: (NOT ALL AT ONCE) Take 24 photographs of the city and write down in a notebook what these photographs are and why you took them. Be SURE to write down what each of the images is in your notebook: or on the sheet attached: Take 24 steps and write down what a detail you noticed for each step. Be mindful as to what you are photographing Imagine each image will be memory of the journey you have taken and how do you wish the journey to be remembered and reflected? Think carefully as to what is inspiring you to collect each image and write down what it is that is ‘sparking you’ to collect each image. Attempt to consider doing this with movements you have observed for 5 scenes. Allow yourself to watch 5 places carefully and take actions. Write them down with body and mind: commit these movements to memory for the return to the ‘studio’. Each participant will individually fix a location, w hich they will focus on and collect m aterials to return to the ‘studio’ w ith.
AT SOME POINT: Note down three stories / narratives which you have observed on your route and place them in text form in your notebook. Note/draw as much detail as you can: for example: movement: color: sound: temperature: how what you were watching made you feel: how you saw the scene at first: who you imagine these characters might be. AT ANOTHER POINT: Write a story about your own memory a specific part of the city, which you are reminded of, on our walk.
(EXAMPLE OF ONE ( OF THREE ) OF THE SCORE BASED TASKS WE WILL EXPLORE)
Practising Space: Review of potential practice based spatial observation tool kit. Beatrice Jarvis University of Ulster.
Towards Amplifying Space: Making Place. Making the city choreograph |
you. 1. Arrive to
location…take a long slow look around, the way people are moving, the way they come and go, the things they do, their pace and their patterns, notice stances, postures,
2. Then merge with the patterns of movement you see there…See the
people and their actions; remove them from their space; see them and their bodies. .....join in, mimic
, simulate,
copy, imitate what you see there, try to be unobtrusive but also be aware of what you are doing. Do this for long enough to blend
.3. Then from that ‘ordinary’ sequence choose one or two – a step, a stance, a gesture….and repeat that in the place you are working in. Note your feelings and if anything feels strange –are you uncomfortable?, with the patterns, possibly 5 minutes or so, trying different movements and sequences if you like
are you being looked at? THEN do the same with your eyes closed a few times! Consolidate this pattern and
repeat until it feels
exhausted; notice the point of exhaustion and repeat again. 4. Next teach yourself these movements and add to them…….turn them into a more set ‘piece’, half natural half new movements of your own, something freer and more complex perhaps than the original you have already ‘taught’ yourself ….and then ‘perform’ that in the space, Change and modify this as you repeat them, adding improvised cadenzas and unexpected changes. With the movement you have created; take it to a different location in the same space and try to directly apply it. How can the movement you have created become an architectural intervention or social intervention? How can the body become a means to unveil the potential ( used in the subjective realm) of the space?
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STAGE FOUR: Return to Studio: REFRAGMENTING THE CITY On im m ediate return to the studio we will write for 12 m inutes notes and m em ories of the walk and process. We will regroup in the studio and discuss: -‐
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The im ages (24) each person took (If participants have a digital cam era these w ill be loaded on to the projector, those working with film can bring the developed im ages to the following session) The m ovem ents w hich w ere gathered The responses to the scores The use of notating the city in im age and m ovem ent
We will then create a piece of movement/ improvisation/ screening as a reflection which in some way traces our movements through the city; setting a few phrases and making a series of patterns across the space. I will guide this process and it will be tailored to the material, which has emerged. Urban space within this workshop become a canvas; upon which numerous marks, symbols and lines are added to; such marks and codes constitutive of some form of spatial and movement language; how can this language be transcribed, documented, recorded and then re- told? To translate is a lie. Just as to converse and re-present scenarios of the urban encounter relies on the subjective realities of the author to generate a narrative which another then reform a presentation of. Losing all sense of meaning to cultural assemblage of language. Concept of universal language as impossible as language is shaped by geography, history. Patterning; which in the fabric of its construction lays bear the failures of communication into physical fruition of the desires of the mind in its solitude? The results of this research aim to function as creative subjective impressions initially; the weight of the task forms as to how such a subjective experiential task can bare productive social fruit; a dialog, which can further enable new methodologies as to how the space is used. We will then come together in the same way we started: a simple meditation; the city as stimulus. Then we shall have a small focus group to reflect upon how the exercise has allowed us to see the city and form a choreographic improvisation using the idea of a simple movement work based on walking the city supported by a photographic exhibition and text installation.
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In simplicity of observation we can seek understanding  The formation of space becomes personalized space. In understanding each path we walk through the city; gradually space can be understood past the maps in which we can lose ourselves. Murmuring discontent; murmuring pleasure; each path takes an expression of humanity. The city can become human for brief moments. Blurred understanding as to the nature of personal rationale and encounter; bodies becomes texts of histories never quite recorded. Wandering minds and cold hands in the winter sun, to see; to think to know; such sight can be joy, as full as empty as we desire. Memories fill each space; a careful probe of passing wonderance. The fury of Margret sat stretched on a park bench; speaking quickly in fag arome, false eye lashes, trying to understand what she might understand of herself. The bus hurtles us from one side of the city to the other; a passage for some sensitive to take. The city takes us, a vulnerable prey; victim of high peace walls, somehow still there when removed; negotiating as navigating. The map takes a human form.
For more information about my practice please see below: BEATRICE JARVIS Choreographer | Performer | Researcher Beatrice is an urban space creative facilitator, choreographer and researcher. She utilizes key concepts of choreography and visual arts methodologies with the intention to develop, original doctoral research on the connections between choreography and urban cultures. She is currently undertaking her practice based PhD funded by DEL titled; The Choreographic Apparatus| How Far can Choreographic Practice be used to Develop New Methods to Explore and Offer Insights into a Range of Urban Contexts. Her practice merges essential techniques in a sociological framework of critical perspectives. Beatrice is currently a visiting lecturer at various town planning and architecture departments in London developing a platform for the conceptual and physical integration of urban planning, sociology and choreography leading to practical social creative implementation. As a dance artist she works in Romania, Gaza, Germany and Northern Ireland to generate large scale choreographic works underpinned with a sociological inquiry; exploring the social power of movement. Beatrice is keen to create platforms social interaction using urban wastelands and reflections on urban habitation as a creative resource; her research currently focuses on how far choreography practice can develop a new methodology to interrogate a range of inner city conflict zones. Beatrice has recently initiated a new urban forum: Urban Research Forum for artists, architects, urban designers, cultural researchers, sociologists, anthropologists and all with an urban interest. This is conducted through seminars, workshops, performances and exhibitions. Collaboration, discourse and intellectual inquiry are seminal to this concept. The city with her practice becomes a live laboratory for social and spatial research of urban space use developing from this research innovative and interactive future space use programs through creativity Current research funded by DEL. ( Dartington College of Arts 2005-‐8 Choreography and Visual Arts BA hons First Class, MA Goldsmiths’, Centre of Community and Urban research, AHRC Funded; PhD, Ulster; Architecture and Art and Design, DEL funded) For further information about my practice please see the following links: • • • •
Creative City life: http://beatricejarvis.com/ Urban Research: http://issuu.com/urbanresearchforum Documentation: http://www.blurb.com/user/bj87 City as Studio: http://urbanorganics.cultura3.net/Resources/media/promo.mov
Work Examples: Heygate Estate/Elephant and Castle: http://vimeo.com/26177151 password: city and http://issuu.com/urbanresearchforum/docs/towards_embodied_methodology?mode=window&viewMode=singlePag e Deptford Study for Steven Lawrence Centre: http://issuu.com/urbanresearchforum/docs/exhibition_catalouge_practising_space/3 and http://www.practisingspace.com/events-‐and-‐exhibitions.php Bucharest Study for local government AHRC: Dansul Objectul din Bucuresti LaBomba http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1015638/a8bd37a9fad73767cb13edef857dba7d Northern Ireland Cartography Project: AHRC: CollectingTrails http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1002909/405ee1c548a4b9718763503e118327cc
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The body in the city acts as vessel; to carry, contain and interact; forming routes and navigations through the immediacies of its encounter. The body in the city becomes a means to extend the discourses of the mind and architecture to a frontal physical plane. The experience of the body as it moves through its decided and undecided routes of the complex labyrinth becomes synthesis; forming in such modes of encounter a reflection as to the physical landscape it temporally habits. Exploring the passage ways of the body through the city can function as means for discourse as to the nature of affect the city may have on the psychology of urban human behaviour and simultaneously affords insight as to how the city is formed and cemented by the very patterns which human occupancy projects. This mutual dialectical relationship becomes synonymous to concepts as to how far cities are designed for people and how people essentially redesign and augment the fabric of urban texture. The embodiment of the urban experience by the human form becomes focus for this research; how far can the body enter a state of conscious reflection as to its use and positioning within the built environment to observe and how can such conscious observations be then potentially be reapplied to generate shifts in land use patterning and generate possible realms of progress within discourses of spatial planning.